A Letter On St. Mary’s Protest From Boston College Faculty And Alumni

Students protested the university's lack of response to the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases. (Arthur Bailin / Heights Editor)

We, the undersigned faculty and alumni wish to express our disappointment with the Boston College administration’s decision to threaten some students who participated in an unauthorized die-in protest on campus December 9th with formal sanction. Alongside young people around the country, students at BC organized to make a material and figurative statement protesting the many series of injustices between state sanctioned violence against Black peoples and silence from many of those in power. John Dunn, spokesperson for BC, delineated in a statement that this unauthorized protest warranted threat of disciplinary or academic sanction because it disrupted construction work on campus and delayed, for a few hours, the move-in of Jesuits into the St. Mary’s Hall Residence.

Civil action, in fact, should be disruptive. If a protest never causes inconvenience, it stands little chance of raising awareness and, moreso, altering the conditions that made the protest necessary. Across the nation, bridges, roadways, shopping centers, and yes, university buildings, have had to delay the routines of daily business while people have demonstrated against state-sanctioned violence. These protests have made the point that individual cases decided under the law collectively show patterns of injustice. Right now, the nation’s eyes have been drawn to BC as unique in its decisions to threaten sanction against students individually who are behaving like so many young people right now – outraged, saddened, but acting collectively.

Other faith-based institutions have sought to take more supportive actions, sometimes within, and sometimes alongside students’ protests. Students at our peer Jesuit universities have organized numerous die-ins and other peaceful demonstrations, with no reports of administrative action. The current response by Boston College administration undermines the peaceful nature of our students’ demonstrations by adding threat of retribution for speaking out against undeniable injustice. This moment in the nation is a robust opportunity to take actions that at least minimally speak to injustices. Speaking only through potential sanctions to the young people who have rightly demanded attention and justice should not be the way Boston College speaks into this moment.

As faculty and alumni, we are enlivened by the students’ decision to stage the protest next to the home of the Jesuits on our campus. The Jesuit tradition has a long and laudable history of pursuing social justice in intellectual, personal, ethical, and religious formation and bringing that perspective to others. Boston College should be proud that its students are strengthening that tradition rather than stifling their efforts. By forming a physical presence to educate others about gross miscarriages of justice, their protest is squarely in keeping with the Jesuit tradition.

We support their actions to educate students and employees on campus and beyond.

While Boston College students have expressed a need for more comprehensive diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for decades, the events of last fall made it painfully clear that the University still has a long road ahead. […]